Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

Post by junkilo » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 10:11 PM UTC

amitparikh wrote: post #70

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #42

I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend. I suppose this is a great advertising technique for small firms, startups, indie shops, etc. "Don't want this[ http://amazon-pulls-sim-city ] to happen? Work for our small team. We won't destroy your work." I know it's standard to say "you get a part in the decisionmaking process!" That's part of it. But a lot of people…

Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility? I understand the frustration at the DRM concept, but you can't blame this on the larger entity as a whole when it was likely just a bug in some code or a small oversight. Things were clearly working when it was in beta.

Post by fusiongyro » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 10:13 PM UTC

mmatants wrote: post #161

fusiongyro wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked out the same way with music. For a short time the labels were experimenting with selling CDs that weren't actually audio CDs, but had been damaged in various ways to make them unplayable on a computer. The result of that experiment speaks for itself. Hopefully it will play out the same way here.

The result is that we are increasingly switching to renting our music via services like Rdio and Spotify. And I can't say that this trend is all bad. I know what I pay for (temporary access), and I'm OK with that.

Post by paperkettle » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 10:13 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #116

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #42

I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend. I suppose this is a great advertising technique for small firms, startups, indie shops, etc. "Don't want this[ http://amazon-pulls-sim-city ] to happen? Work for our small team. We won't destroy your work." I know it's standard to say "you get a part in the decisionmaking process!" That's part of it. But a lot of people…

"I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend." On the contrary, this is by far the most realistic simulation of working for government that's ever been created.

Post by toyg » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 10:15 PM UTC

estel wrote: post #121

reitzensteinm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're adding clarity here. People are upset about the lack of a single player offline mode, which absolutely is about preventing unlicensed copies. There is no technical reason for its absence. The cloud based stuff sounds great, and if it were an optional extra that was unavailable at launch due to technical difficulties, I doubt you'd see a hundredth as much bad PR.

Isn't: > We can argue about whether these things should be computed and stored in the cloud, but I think there is a plausible, if imperfect, argument for doing so Conceivably true? We could be in a world with no DRM, but there would still be a market trend moving games towards a more social, connected and integrated experience; and some developers will be looking at ways to fundamentally build their new games in a wa…

Post by blocktuw » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 10:16 PM UTC

bdesimone wrote: post #75

Short of asking for a refund, and not buying the game in the first place, who at Maxis and EA can customers write/call/etc to let them know what I feel about the business decision to force online only DRM?